Combination vegetable slicing and paring tool



July 31, 1956 c. J. LINENFELSER 2,756,501

CQMBINATION VEGETABLE SLICING AND PARING TOOL Filed April 2, 1953 a /46 INVENTOR MaQXfW ATTORNEY United States Patent() COMBINATION VEGETABLE SLICING AND PARING TOOL Carl J. Linenfelser, Brooklyn, Mich.

Application April 2, 1953, Serial No. 346,448

4 Claims. (Cl. 30-283) The present invention relates to improvements in paring and slicing knives particularly suited for use in the kitchen for paring vegetables and the like.

It is an object of the invention to provide a knife of the type described which may be readily adjusted from a paring position to one or more slicing positions with the depth of cut being automatically determined in each of the positions of adjustment.

Another object of the invention is to provide a knife of the type described which may be inexpensively manufactored yet is capable of giving long service and may be readily cleaned.

These and other objects and advantages residing in the construction, arrangement and combination of parts will more fully appear from the following description and the appended claims.

In the drawings,

Fig. 1 is a side elevational view of the knife with the gauging member shown lowered and locked into the paring position,

Fig. 2 is a top view of Fig. I particularly showing the coring portion of the blade,

Fig. 3 is a sectional view taken on line III-III of Fig. 1,

Fig. 4 is a view similar to Fig. 3 taken on line IVIV of Fig. l with the gauging member removed for clarity,

Fig. 5 is an end view of the gauging member showing the inverted channels,

Fig. 6 is a view similar to Fig. l with the gauging member shown raised and disengaged from the locking ribs and in alignment for being lowered into the slicing position,

Fig. 7 is a sectional view taken on line VIIVII of Fig. 6, and

Fig. 8 is a side elevational view partially shown in broken section of a modified form of the invention.

As shown, the knife 10 comprises a suitable wooden or plastic handle 12 preferably equipped with a metal ferrule 14 at its upper end. The cutting and coring member 16 has a longitudinal blade portion 18 with the lower end thereof formed into an extension rod portion 20 embedded in the handle 12. At the top of the blade portion 18 an offset 22 is provided which carries a sharpened return-bent coring portion 24. A headed shaft 26 extends parallel to the blade portion 18 with its lower end having an extension portion 28 embedded in the handle 12 in a manner similar to the blade extension 20.

Mounted on the shaft 26 for both endwise and rotational movement relative to the shaft 26 is a cylindrical gauging member 30 of any suitable material such as transparent plastic. To receive the shaft 26 the member 30 has a through hole 32 which is eccentrically located as more clearly shown in the lower end view of the member 30 in Fig. 5. To lock the member 30 against rotation in different positions of its adjustment relative to the blade portion 18 to vary the thickness of the cut, the lower end of the member 30 is provided with a suit- ICC able projection shoulder or other equivalent structure which, in the illustrated embodiment of the invention, is in the form of crossing inverted channels 34 and 36. The interlocking structure for selective engagement in the channels 34 and 36 may take many forms and as shown embodies a base member 38 mounted on the upper end of the handle 12 and held against relative rotation by any suitable means such as shear pins 40 extending into the handle 12. Projecting from the surface 42 of the base member are aligning locking ribs 44 which may be selectively received in the inverted channels 34 and 36 upon'raising the gauging member 30 as shown in Fig. 6, aligning the selected channels 34 and 36 with the ribs 44 by rotation of the member 30 and then lowering the member 30 to bring the ribs 44 into the selected channel. 1

It will be appreciated that with the arrangement shown, the member 30 may be located in four different positions by rotation on the shaft 26 to vary the distance between the sharpened edge of the blade portion 18 and the outer cylindrical surface of the member 30 to cut different depths. To avoid inadvertent endwise movement of the member 30 from any one of its positions of adjustment, the ribs 44 may have a slight wedging action in the channels 34 and 36. However, this is not necessary as the cutting pressure and the position of the knife in use tends to hold the member 30 to the base member 38 in interlocking relationship.

Referring to Fig. 8, another form of the invention is shown in which the cutting and coring member 16 is adjustable about the axis of the handle 12' with the gauging member 30 being fixed with respect to the handle 12'. The blade 18 is attached at its lower end to the ferrule 14' which is slidably and rotatably mounted on the upper end of the handle 12'. To fix the member 30 in the handle 12' against relative rotation, a shaft 46 is embedded in the handle 12 and anchored against rotation in the member 30. Preferably, the shaft 46 is square in cross-section except for a reduced cylindrical portion 48 exposed directly below the lower end of the member 30'.

By providing the top of the ferrule 14 with a square hole 50 to receive the square of the shaft 46 with a sliding fit, when the ferrule 14' is raised on the shaft 46 to bring the hole 50 into the plane of the portion 48 the ferrule 14 and the blade 18 may be rotated around the axis of the gauging member 30'. As the member 30 is preferably in the form of a cylinder having its axis eccentric to the shaft 46, rotation of the blade 13 about the member 30' will vary the depth of the cut.

When the ferrule 14 is raised relative to the handle 12, the leaf spring 52 is compressed. Upon release of the ferrule 14' to the tension of the spring 52, the mating square portions on the shaft 46 and the ferrule 14' will hold the blade 18 and member 30' in any one of the selected positions of adjustment.

I claim:

1. A combination paring and slicing knife comprising a handle, an elongated blade supported from said handle at one end, the other end of said blade having an otfset, a shaft mounted in said handle at one end and from said offset at the other end in parallelism with said blade, a cylindrical gauging member mounted eccentrically upon said shaft for both rotational and endwise movement, locking structure engageable and disengageable upon endwise movement of said member on said shaft relative to said handle and consisting of telescoping means located respectively upon said member and handle, said means be ing selectively engageable upon rotation and endwise movement of said member upon said shaft to vary the spacing of the outer cylindrical surface of said member relative to said blade to vary the depth of cut.

a handle, an elongated blade supported from said handle, a shaft supported from said handle in parallelism with said blade, a gauging member eccentrically mounted upon said shaft for relative endwise and rotational movement, locking structure engageable and disengageable upon endwise movement of said member upon said shaft relative to said handle consisting of telescoping means located respectively upon said member and handle, said means being selectively engageable upon rotation and endwise movement of said member upon said shaft to vary the spacing of the outer cylindrical surface of said member relative to said blade to vary the depth of cut. I

3. A combination paring and slicing knife as defined in claim 2 wherein said telescoping means comprising shoulder portions upon said gauging member at one end thereof and shoulder defining portions fixed relative to said handle and supported-thereby for interlocking engagement with said first shoulder portions-upon endwise movement of said gauging member upon said shaft to lock said gauging member against relative rotation with respect to said blade.

4. A combination paring and slicing knife comprising a handle, an elongated blade supported from said handle I 4 at one end, the other end of said blade having an olfset, a cylindrical gauging member, pivotal shaft means for supporting said member between said offset and said handle in spaced parallelism to said blade, said means being eccentric to the axis of said member and supporting said member for relative rotational adjustment about an axis eccentric to the axis of said cylindrical member to vary the spacing of said blade and member, said shaft means having end play in said blade and handle for supporting said member for axial movement relative to said blade, and means locking said member and blade against relative rotation in different positions upon relative axial and rotational movement between said member and blade.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,296,805 HOIOWnia Mar. 11, 1919 1,713,440 Kownacki May 14, 1929 2,028,915 Ott Ian. 28, 1936 2,078,817 Thrasher Apr. 27, 1937 FOREIGN PATENTS Great Britain Dec. 29, 1893 

